A guide to your modern action hero

We are in the midst of, well, maybe not a Golden Age of Action Movies but certainly something that resembles tin or copper. This summer—with junky, clattering, machine gun-abetted thunderdomes like The A-Team, Iron Man 2, and Knight and Day already in theaters, and with the Voltron-formation of The Expendables coming in August—is ripe with action. Today sees the release of Predators, the fifth entry in the invisible, fang-faced alien series and the first in a long while that looks like it’ll be worth a damn. (Speak nothing of Alien vs. Predator and its putrid sequel Requiem, OK?) What makes Predators, produced by Robert Rodriguez and directed by Hungarian expat Nimród Antal, such an intriguing gamble lies in its curious casting, which includes Laurence Fishburne; Danny Trejo, a Rodriguez stalwart and star of his forthcoming joint Machete; Justified’s indispensable Walton Goggins; City of God’s Alice Braga and two unlikely leads (see below). And so with this and the oncoming Expendables mega-team-up (Stallone, Arnold, Willis, Statham, Li, and, uh, Mickey Rourke) coming to fruition, we find ourselves at an important touch point in action cinema. Who are our heroes? Below you’ll find a handy guide to face-breaking archetypes.